Sales on my book, The Scribbler's Guide to the Land of Myth, have slowed down the last few months.  (Well, let's be honest, they've been almost non-existant.)  Now, a large part of that is that I have not done a lot of book promotion on it.  I'd been waiting to get some detailed information on one matter before I started planning what to do next.

So, today I got that information and it's a little bit discouraging.

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Recently, I was reading the first chapter of a friend's current work-in-progress, in order to give her notes on it.

So, let me say that first off, I did like her story.  She is a good storyteller.

But something about the chapter nagged at me, because the descriptions felt flat.  On the one hand, it was clear to me that she has a sure vision of her characters and setting.  And the chapter was not lacking in the details.  But on the other hand, something just wasn't working.

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A screenwriting columnist for the Village Voice has written a rant about a graceless wannabe writer who consumed a chunk of time for the columnist.

Remember, it is the Village Voice so the language is not filtered.  But I'm posting THIS LINK because there are some discussions going on about it in two widely divergent communities I belong to.

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I think I've mentioned it before: I have this website.  Even though my ambition for it has always been to regularly add new material to it, the reality is that I don't do it very often.  A big reason for that is that it does take a chunk of time to build a webpage.  I'm not the best at it, and half the time I'm not entirely sure I know what I'm doing when it comes to coding. 

So, I updated my front page, adding a fairly current photo of myself.  Alas... that coding stuff got away from me, so some of the text runs off to the right side.  I'm going to have to do something about that.  Eventually.

I added a new paper to the site: "For Love of Sophia."  It was written for and presented at Mythcon 34, which was held in Nashville.  The theme of the conference that year was the Wise Woman in literature, and it gave me an opportunity to take some of the things I had worked on in The Scribbler's Guide to the Land of Myth, and apply them to literary studies.  I admit, I got a kick out of that.

As a side note on that, I have to admit to a certain genuine enjoyment of doing literary scholarship just for the fun of it.  It lets me step beyond my mere passive reception and enjoyment of a work of fiction and elaborate on aspects of the work that have resonated for me.  I have a strong analytic turn of mind (happily, in my case, balanced by a strong synthetic side as well -- putting things back together in new configurations), and it is a pleasure to give it free rein in ways that do not require negative criticism.  It's also refected in my interest in process  (how a work came about, was constructed, or was influenced), which travels with my love of the product (the work itself, be it a book or a piece of artwork or music).

Anyway, I've also added a couple of new reviews, long overdue: a short review of James A. Owen's Imaginarium Geographica,  and Jincy Willett's The Writing Class.  The links directly to the reviews are in this update notice.

(And, oh great! Another coding error -- the Amazon link for Indigo King got added in the wrong place -- I'm going to have to fix that! Yuck. Tomorrow, probably.)

Every so often, I reconsider my policy of the permanent reviews on the website.  I mean, I have a couple of blogs that I can do reviews on, this one and the one on my MySpace  (which I use mostly for comics reviews -- it too needs some updating).  But for some reason, I feel that blog posts are more ephemeral, I'm not sure why.  They aren't really, the way there is redundency all over the internet.  Perhaps it is that the review is hosted on someone else's "property", whereas when it is on my own website, it's planted in my own yard.  But there's also this feeling I have that if I take the time to add a review to the website, it's a permanent statement on my part -- it's not just a passing reaction to the immediate experience.  If I add it to the website, "I REALLY mean it!"

Anyway... that's been the activity I was engaged in this morning.  Obviously, I'm going to have to do some more tweaking tonight or tomorrow to correct those little glitches on the new additions.

In the meantime -- HEY! plan ahead for Christmas!  Check out my original Christmas card designs and BUY SOME -- please forgive the crappy black and white scans of the artwork, by the way.  The cards are actually in color, and look much much better.  (Yeah, I am going to have to get on the stick and master my new scanner. *sigh* work work work).

I've mentioned in a couple of previous entries how I sometimes check the search strings that bring people to my website.  It's a rather interesting activity, that I don't do often enough.  I stopped checking my website stats frequently, because at present, once I get past what seems to be terrific numbers, I realize that the high number of hits are the spam bots and search engine spiders.  I started realizing this, when I noticed that the pages that got the highest number of hits (hundreds of them), were the registration pages for my message board and the Word Press blogs connected with my sites.  *sigh*

Once I ignore all the hits for the message board and blogs, I average about 48 visitors a month.  Which all things considered isn't really bad, considering I don't really push for traffic much.  Once I get myself back into gear and update it (it has needed an update for some time), and keep updating it with new material, I might do that.  In the meantime, like I said, it's fun to see how "strangers" got there.

A lot of these strings deal with the hero's quest, or the nature of the hero.  Some of them deal with heroines -- interesting that there is still  the consideration of the female figure as the non-active, or somehow distinct in nature from the hero.I have, of course, commented on that point before.

There are some good springboards in the search strings, that I will flesh out either here or on the Scribbler's Guide blog.  But the one that caught my attention for today was the question of "What makes one a hero or heroine in our culture?"

(I do get the impression that some of the search strings come from homework assignments, and the students are looking for things that can give them a clue on which way to jump.  But they're still interesting.)

What does make one a hero in our culture these days?  There is the obvious aspect of delivering groups of people to safety in dangerous circumstances -- like the pilot who landed his commercial airplane in the Hudson River without loss of life to any of the passengers.  So, I guess we could say that the ability to cope with sudden disaster is one quality that makes for a hero in our culture.  What else?  A concern for others over one's own self-preservation.  Now, memories of the First Responders who rushed into the World Trade Center and did everything they could to get as many people out of the towers as they possibly could, that was definitely putting others before one's own survival.  How about quick wits and quick reactions?  (I can think of occasions where, though they might be ideal qualities, they aren't necessary.)

When it comes down to it, I don't think the qualities that make for a hero have changed all that much down the ages.  It's more to the point that I don't think we see quite as many occasions for heroism these days - at least not in the sense that an "unknown" jumps into the breach.  We have "profressionally trained heroes" in our police officers and firemen.  (Which is not to say that there are not some bad apples in the ranks.)  Have we come to rely on them so much, that we no longer think that a true hero can be anyone? 

There are stories of social disengagement often enough these days, of people who stand by when something dire is happening, who just watch but do not engage.  Does our Observer Society lead us to consider "heroes" to be "someone other than me"?  Have we really reached a point where we think heroism calls for special qualities that only some people have?

Points for mulling over -- what do you think?

Well.... putting on a new face on my LiveJournal page that is.

Every so often, I get hit with a desire for a little bit of change.  Previously, I had customized a plain layout, continuing the red and white I use on my website.   But, partly because I wanted to shift to a tag cloud and the previous page theme didn't allow it, and partly just to have a new visual, I looked through some of the themes.

When you're starting from a name of "scribblerworks", finding one with a pen in action is hard to resist.  My only complaint? The sepia color.  I'm not sure if I'd want to continue with the red tones I've been using, or something else, but the sepia seems a bit bland to me.  On the other hand, I am someone who likes vivid and saturated color.  Even so... I'm going to give this a try for a while.

I've been meaning to post something about writing and world-building, but I'll do that later.  Maybe even later today.

This time out, I'm tackling the cable show Burn Notice.  I discuss how the show handle its Constant Jeopardy Syndrome construction (it does it well!).

I'd actually meant to write about some other mythic motifs in regard to this show (Michael as Savior and as Shapechanger), but with the summer episodes' cliffhanger, I was struck with admiration on how the show continually lets Michael make progress toward his goal, and yet also changes the nature of the goal both as a professional object and a personal one.

So, yes, I am once again sending you to the Scribbler's Guide blog!  Enjoy, and comment where you will (I will find you! ;-) )

I occasionally coach other writers, especially those taking beginning steps.  One of my rules of thumb is that if the person has a passion for story, they can eventually learn the craft -- if they are willing to do the work, and can listen to criticism.  And when I'm working with such writers, I don't pull punches: if something isn't working, I'll say it isn't working.  But I do try to keep it on track with what the writer wanted out of the piece, where they wanted to take me as a Reader.

When I start talking with someone who wants to get into writing, whether it is screenwriting or any other sort, I usually recommend that they go read Blake Snyder's Save the Cat! book.  Blake's book is a great starting point for developing a story.  Once you get going, you may branch out, but if you use his starting points, you are not likely to go drastically astray.

The book first appeared in May of 2005, and I got it that July.  And was hooked.  It wasn't that Blake had astonishing new revelations about writing.  It was that he could make the points so succinctly and engagingly.  Every sentence bounced with enthusiasm for storytelling.  Instead of lecturing, his prose conveyed a joy in writing that was infectious.  It made you excited about your own storytelling, mostly because it affirmed the mere act of starting to tell a story.

When I found out that Blake was going to do a book signing that September at the Writers Store in Los Angeles, I had to go.  I took along my  already edge-worn copy to have him sign it.  In the course of the conversation, we really hit it off.  I was to learn that he had the gift of easy sociability.  But he also always delivered on the sense of friendship he conveyed.  He was always accessible by email, and he was prompt in responding to emails.  Later that year, I took one of the first (if not THE first) of his "Beat Sheet Workshops" -- two days with about eight other people working out story kinks.  It was an experience worth having.

And after that, as I worked to get The Scribbler's Guide to the Land of Myth off the ground, he was always very supportive.  He was ready with advice, and encouragement.  He graciously wrote a blurb for me to use on the back cover.  He even recently gave me some advice on how to further market the book, bringing it to a broader audience - advice I mean to follow, once I get plans laid out.

But notice the past tense.  I found out this afternoon, that Blake died this morning.

It is hard to accept that I will not again see him bounce into a room (he really did seem to bounce), his face bright with enthusiasm and expectation.  I will not see him engage with a shy, insecure writer and draw him or her out about their story, about what really made them passionate about their story.  For he had that gift, too. 

Writing should be fun for the writer - this was one thing he managed to convey.  Oh, not the grind work of getting something completed: he didn't pretend that it was not work, nor hard.  He didn't pretend that the editing process could be painless: he knew that editing down a story often meant "killing one's children".  But over all and under all, he knew that a writer should take joy in the act of writing, the process of creation, that the writer has to love his story.

The story of Blake's life these last few years has been one of joyful encouragement, of teaching those who were burning to learn how to better craft their stories.  I'm sure in his private life he must have faced down times.  But he never let it undermine what he had discovered to be his calling for this point in his life: nurturing new writers, guiding them to find the heart of their own stories.  He blazed through his story brightly, and now his light has gone out.

But he lit many, many storyteller candles in his passage, and those lights will continue shining.

So, at the end of Comic Con on Sunday, I finally caught up with one of the editors I like to chat with each year, Matt Idelson.  I enjoy talking with him, as just another person, of course, but I also chat him up because... well, he's an editor I'd like to get a writing gig from.  As one of the editors for DC Comics, he currently oversees Superman and Wonder Woman.  The last few years, he and I have chatted about a second book for the Wonder Woman "group" (which is only one title right now), focused on Wonder Woman's sister, Donna Troy.  He likes the idea of having it, and he knows how much I want to write it, but when it comes to company properties, they often have to wait on "big event stories" and sundry other things.  And so the Donna Troy idea sits in waiting.

But Matt's a good guy, and he knows I've got more going on than just trying to get a writing gig out of him.  Last year, I'd given him a copy of The Scribbler's Guide to the Land of Myth, and he asked how things were going with that.  I had to admit that things are currently a little bit stalled -- there are marketing matters I need to sort out, so that it can be carried in stores, and I need to retool my advertising approaches.  But, I added, I had started a blog, to do little bits on popular entertainment, drawing from aspects of the book.  He thought this was a good idea, and asked if I had done  (or was going to do) anything on comics.  I said no, not yet.  He observed that he'd have thought it would be right up my alley.

At the time, what crossed my mind was "More on comics? I don't know.  I mean, I've covered Batman and Superman in the book."  But on my drive back from San Diego, I thought about his question.  "Why not do something on Wonder Woman?" I thought.  My friend, Gail Simone, is currently the writer for the title, and I love what she is doing.  But even so, I keep running across people who say that they don't "get" Wonder Woman.  They don't know how to plug into her character.  So it occured to me to write up something about the difficulties in the character -- why she isn't easy to write or to connect with. 

So, here it is, the latest in my "Mythic Motifs at Work" -- THE PROBLEM WITH WONDER WOMAN.

Hope you enjoy it.

Of course, one of the things that happen when you are the person running the conference is that you hardly remember any of the details.  And you get to very few of the program items, because you are always somewhere else, either dealing with a problem, or checking to make sure all is well with various people.

But even so... my Mythcon report, such as it is, including some pictures of the Food Art.  I didn't photograph everything that was created, alas.  And there was quite a lot of it this year.  Everyone seemed singularly inspired.  It was fun to hear so many people having so much fun!  Quite a few roars of laughter were heard.

http://scribblerworks.us/blog/?p=28

I round out my report with pictures of my lovely little boat, which the committee gave me.  They made me cry -- intense emotion, on top of the end of stress, fatigue, and deep pleasure in seeing how much eveyone had enjoyed themselves.  My committee did a LOT of work, and I certainly could not have done it without them (especially the heroic Gavin Claypool, who did so much more than his duties as Registrar that it isn't even funny - he was extremely valuable to me).

I'm still in San Diego, with two days of Comic Con to survive.  My feet want to fall off, and my knees stiffen up very easily.  I briefly sat out in the sun this afternoon before I was going to leave, and the hot sun on my black slacks soothed the knees for a little bit.  Enough to get me a bit further, but man, it's an endurance test.  One weekend spent standing and walking a lot, followed by another five days of a more intensive version of the same (concrete convention floor under occasional carpeting).

Wednesday was the Preview Night, which involved a lot of waiting in line for people. And it inspired a bit of silliness in me, in the form of a short story. Short enough to post here.  For your amusement....

THE END OF THE LINE

Thousands and thousands of people converged upon the city of San Diego.  The sun shone brightly, and heat from the solar rays accumulated in the sidewalks, seeping upward through sneakers, flip-flops, sandals, boots, mocassins and assorted other foot gear.  The population of a city descended from the sky by airplane, rolled through the streets by automobile or bus or train.  All this human traffic gathered for the annual Comic Con International.  The arrivals were annoyed by the scarcity of parking spots.  That the city's baseball team was playing an important game at the ballpark across the street from the Convention Center meant nothing to these visitors.  The Exhibit Hall held the mystical Kaabah for the pilgrims, a kaabah that was different for each.

Lines upon lines formed of weary but eager pedestrians.  Lines for Hall H (the Hollywood Hall).  Lines for registration pick-up.  Lines for the television shows preview.  But most important of all, lines to enter the Exhibit Hall.  This, the fabled Preview Night meant that the tens of thousands who possessed four-day passes would ahve access to the Exhibit Hall prior to the official opening of Comic Con.  It promised first access to all the storied treasures that were to be offered.

From one end to the other, the might Convention Center stretched a full quarter mile.  And every attendee faced the prospect of multiple transits end to end during the Con.  They faced it without fear or trepidation, accepting it as a necessity for Comic Con.

The wait was long, for although registration, where attendees could pick up their pass badges, opened at three (actually earlier, as mercy was taken on the patient flocks of fans), the Hall was not due to open until six.  The long line was folded back on itself in the broad air-conditioned corridors of the upper level of the Center.

And then the magic happened!  Movement!  The line moved forward.  The polite red-shirted Elite security shepherded the eager fans into neat lines.  The line snaked forward, away and back in a bend and then around a corner.

Dutifully, the patient attendees followed instructions and marched down the bayside corridor to some access point in the region of Hall G.

But one lone attendee, who hobbled slowly forward on sore feet, with stiff knees, paused as she watched the eager fans disappear in the distance.  Then she heard the walkee-talkee of an orange-shirted convention staff member crackle.  The voice that came through was oddly accented, unlike any foreign influence she had ever heard.  "Loading in of groceries completed.  Excellent supplies this year. Lipid rich."

She stopped in her tracks.  What has she overheard?  A sensation of horror crept over her.  After all, the line had been disappearing in a direction removed from the usual access to the Exhibit hall.  But ... surely those thousands of attendees were not the groceries mentioned!

She walked stiffly over to the windows that stared out at the bay.  The glare of the westering sun distorted everything.  But, just when she had decided she was imagining things, the windows rattled from a massive displacement of air.  She thought she saw a shadowed saucer shape, but then it was gone.

However, when she did finally get down to the Exhibit Hall, it was gloriously spare in population.  The exhibitors smiled cheerfully, since the humidity had not risen noticably.  She walked the aisles without bumping others, and scored a number of the special exclusives, since the numbers clustered round the booths were strangely low.

Happy and satiated at the end of the evening, she passed two more staffers and heard one comment to the other, "If it keeps the fire marshal away, it is worth it to deal with those alien carnivores."

******

Just to be clear... this IS a work of fiction.  :D

There is much that I could say, but for right now, I am facing the last few hours of Mythcon 40.  It has been a glorious weekend and one that I shall treasure for a long, long time in memory.  There has been much laughter, much conversation, much joy.  And that pleases me after all my work.

But the following is, for me, the heart and soul of Mythcon.  It's a bit I wrote up to introduce the Mythopoeic Awards Chairman, but it describes, for me, what makes Mythcon so special and unique.

*******

The playfulness and joy that comes from this community frequently gives Mythcon an air of frivolity.  But it is a playfulness that springs from our serious attention to a group of writers who took their scholarship seriously.  The Inklings were a group who also considered joy an important part of their response to the world.  A joy in their work has been communicated to us, and it finds its expression in the best scholarship on these authors anywhere.  Past Mythcons have been graced as the testing ground for many important works (for instance, Verlyn Flieger's work on Tolkien).  It is our joy in serious study that sustains us each year at Mythcon, it is our serious appreciation of our enjoyment in these works that inspires us to return again and again to hear what new insight others have gained.

And in that vein we bestow awards on works of scholarship and fiction that do honor to the traditions of the Inklings. ....

*******

Mythcon 40 is almost over.  My job is nearly done.  But someone else gets to pick up for next year.  And I get to look forward to that.

Mind you, I never watched The A-Team.  It never quite hit the right note for me back in the day.  But, the line is a useful one.

Anyway, I am pausing in my Mythcon preparations to take a little break.  There are still chores to be done -- preparing the registration packets, mostly.  And a handful of personal chores, like laundry.  But I'm beginning to believe that I will actually have things all in order by Wednesday evening.  I dream of getting up Thursday morning, leisurely getting myself pulled together and then, after a morning swim, setting out for the site.  And watching the fun unroll.

Of course, there is one thing I haven't prepared yet, and that's my comments for the Opening Ceremonies.  Oh, I don't plan on droning on long, but I do want to speak about how it all came together.

This has been nearly two years in planning.  The early days of the planning were mostly just thinking of the conjunction of Guests of Honor.  Then there was the seeking out of committee members, people I knew I could work with and who were "just right" for the tasks at hand.  I feel fortunate in the choices I made.  Then came the seeking out of a good location.  There were various places in Southern California that have hosted Mythcons in the past.  But none of them were what I considered idea -- that required a location that people knew well enough to consider driving to, especially if they only meant to come for one day of the four day conference.  UCLA always was on the top of my list for that.  When I investigated, the facilities UCLA offered for conferences seemed ideal for Mythcon.  So, that's where we settled.

Of course, with the economy being what it is, there was every expectation that attendence would be lower.  But as our deadlines drew near last month, people started popping up.  But beyond that agreeable development, there is the pleasure and excited expectation that various people have been displaying.  The right guests, a fascinating collection of presentations, upbeat energy... it is all what I hoped for, but almost didn't dare to expect.

This has been a labor of love, that's for sure.  I feel as if I am getting the opportunity to do a mass of entertaining that I have not been able to do for years (parking in my neighborhood is such that it would be a punishment to ask a group of friends over at once).  I am being energized by the expectation of being able to watch people connect, have fun, be absorbed in interesting conversations.  And I am utterly grateful for the folks who have follwed in my train, jumped at my call, and delivered on their tasks.

Lisa Harrigan, Sherwood Smith, Gavin Claypool, Lisa (and her husband Robert) Cowan, Nancy Martsch, Bonnie and Tim Callahan -- my faithful committee; Lynn Maudlin, Mythopoeic Society Secretary for Conferences and superb nudge and nag (and good friend!); Randy Hoyt, Society Webmaster, who has been very accommodating about posting everything -- it has been a BIG assist!; UCLA's Monica Hite, the university's conference coordinator -- yes, it's her job, but she has handled my information requests and occasional glitches well; UCLA's Charli Wong, our catering coordinator; Rusty Poehner, who found us a way to handle the insurance -- a good thing she deals with non-profit 501.c3s frequently.  Without each and every one of these folks, I would not be as mentally at ease about the conference as I am.



Of course, "at ease" is definitely relative.  I am a control freak, after all. :D

I certainly had not meant to post another one of the motifs blog things this soon.  I have intended to spread them out a bit.  But these thoughts on Disney-Pixar's Up have been bubbling for a while, so I went ahead with it.

You can check it out HERE.

If you have not seen Up yet, you should get out and do so.  One of the most charming films I've seen in a while.  But even if you have not seen it, I don't think my comments will spoil it for you at all.

After spending more time wrangling with the Mythcon program book's lay out (somehow it got plagued with some ghost headers that messed up some pages), I was finally able to post the next installment  on the Scribbler's Guide blog. 

This time, I take on Dr. Gregory House, misanthrope.  He's "divine" did you know?


More of these short analyses coming -- and all of the ideas I'm drawing on can be found in The Scribbler's Guide to the Land of Myth.  Try it!  You'll like it!

Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, I got an idea for something coming up in my novel.  I thought, "Oh, hey, that's an interesting idea.  I'll write it down in the morning."  Of course, you don't always remember in the morning things that occured to you late at night, especially just before sleeping.  Happily, I remembered that point too.  I went back into the living room, turned on the light, went to my desk and got out the notebook where I write down the odd out-of-sequence ideas that come to me about the current work.

I have to say that it is really, really tempting to explain the specifics of what this idea is, because the way it fits in with the story is very satisfying.  But, because I think it will make a particular moment in the story even more emotionally powerful, I don't want to spoil the surprise.

But I do want to talk about it generally.

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